With iOS 11, your photos and videos will occupy half with the same quality

During the event of WWDC 2017 Apple introduced - among many other new features related to the hardware and software of the apple bite - iOS 11 , the next operating system for iPhone and iPad that left us with the mouth open thanks to its inexhaustible surprises . Among them, one that will be tremendously useful: two new image formats called HEVC and HEIF that will allow us to save a lot of space .

And with HEVC and HEIF we can save up to 50% without losing image quality, incredible right? Do you want to know all their secrets?

Why HEVC and HEIF?

Until now, the videos and photographs in iOS used the compressed formats h.264 and JPG respectively. But as the camera improves every year and storage capacity needs to be increased to meet real demand, Apple has opted for a solution that is the perfect compromise between quality and compression .

As a curiosity, HEVC comes from the acronyms High Efficiency Video Coding or high-efficiency video encoding and HEIF High Efficiency Image File Format or high-efficiency image format files. Of course, Apple has not invented anything, it simply adopts relatively new systems - HEIF was invented in 2015 and HEVC is about the same age - they are going to greatly improve the user experience, both from the point of view of storage and for the Streaming . In this way, Apple is preparing for an increasingly consumer-oriented and multimedia-rich future.

However, these are not new formats for Apple, which already used in FaceTime since the birth of the iPhone 6 for video calls , saving data consumption and was more efficient against bad connections.

Of course and as expected, Apple marks a trend in the technology sector and already in WWDC 2017 itself commented on the need for third-party apps to adopt these compression formats so that everything is compatible .

What will it mean for the user?

Very easy, if the media content takes half, means you can save twice as many photos and videos in the same space.

But it's not gold that glitters: In order to use HEIV and HEVC, devices are required to have at least one A9 chip , something that in some way continues with Apple's scheduled obsolescence for its older terminals.